I think MVC is a general concept / pattern and doesn't need to be reflected exactly in order to be useful. In case of Django (and other frameworks like Phoenix), the "view" is not necessarily a template .. can be a JSON response, CBOR or something else entirely.

The notion of a "controller" is also quite flexible. It accommodates "whatever logic we need to interpret the user's request and respond with the right thing". Is everything part of the controller? Is there some kind of a domain/business logic layer as well? All up to you really.